Twisted Web

Online paeans to a local newscaster's breasts land a Washington Park man in jail

A registered sex offender apparently obsessed with the breasts of a St. Louis TV anchorwoman is out on bail and back working the counter at a Belleville gas station after pleading not guilty to two counts of felony cyberstalking. His target: KTVI-TV (Channel 2)'s Randi Naughton.

According to the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department, Rickey E. Lamming, a 49-year-old Washington Park resident, sent Naughton a series of harassing e-mails, some of them threatening rape. He also started a Web site, www.randinaughton.com, replete with pictures of the 43-year-old Naughton and raunchy descriptions of fantasized sex acts with her.

An entry from the first blog, dated December 28, 2004, reads: "Is it just me, or do the people that run Channel 2 make Randi wear those jackets? At least the jackets are usually tight and it looks like her tits are wanting to be free.

"At least on today's news, she wasn't wearing a blouse under it so you could see the freckles on her upper chest, making me think she is a redhead (making her MORE sexy, if that's possible)."

Lamming, who is expected to stand trial on the charges, was arrested on May 12 and released in mid-June after posting a $7,500 bond.

In 1996 Lamming pled guilty to charges of soliciting a girl under thirteen and masturbating in front of a girl who was under seventeen. He received six months in jail and two years of probation. In 1998 he was placed on probation for unlawful possession of a firearm. He was also charged with public indecency that year, although the charges were dropped.

Lamming did not return repeated calls for comment.

Naughton says Lamming first wrote to her last December. "I had a creepy feeling about what he said in the e-mails," she says. "Things like, 'Can you please unbutton another button on your jacket?'"

She adds that she also felt violated when the local media got ahold of the sites.

"People started yapping about it on stlmedia.net, and then some radio stations started calling," she grouses. "The news chick at Y98 FM had the nerve to ask me what I thought of my own breasts on the air. I'll be honest with you -- that pissed me off, because I was realizing this guy was dangerous, and she's making fun of it."

Naughton has been at KTVI since 1993 and currently co-hosts FOX 2's News in the Morning. She is also the co-author of The Tooth Fairy Palace, a book she wrote with her eleven-year-old daughter. She says she still fears for her safety.

"It has stirred up my blood pressure and my anxiety and my fear, and all that other stuff," Naughton says.

A KTVI computer technician was able to trace the e-mails to Lamming. Says the station's vice president for news, Brad Remington: "Our security people are handling this. Almost every woman on TV gets some form of this. It's really sad."